She brought a faint air of repression and tragedy into the Inn, but no one dreamed of resenting it. The careless, rather wild life we all lead seemed suddenly hollow, feeble--wicked almost. Many a host said to a noisy friend: “Don’t make so much row, old man. You’ll frighten Mrs. Piety.” She used to creep about at all hours; used to listen on the stairs, peep into sets if a door happened to be open, watch men and girls in and out with the air of a hungry cat. But everybody understood and everybody sympathized. The little light-haired woman in black, with the sad, inquisitive glances, became our Deity. I went with her to every curio shop and marine store in Bloomsbury. There are many. Some of the people who keep them are regular characters in their way. We were trying to find out the history of the dagger--that queer-handled weapon which had stuck out from dead Murphy’s waistcoat. The police had it. They were making every inquiry of course, but Barbara thought she could do better than they. As I said, a true woman must do something--even if it is something foolish. The little stuffy, foul courts of Holborn grew to know her and to pity her. All the other women pointed after her furtively and said, as the laundresses said, “Pore young thing.” You don’t want me to go into the detective side of the affair. You can well imagine the array of evidence against Bob; you can see the damning importance of his row with Murphy, of the soaked red corner of his cuffs, and the red-ocher splashes on his face and hands. Barbara heard him committed for trial. She didn’t cry out or even shudder. But her eyes grew more wide and somber than before. That night I took her to the theater. Several fellows came to me quite seriously and said: “Do something to distract her. The poor woman’s going out of her mind.” Hemming--he had been a friend of Jimmy’s, and was on a dramatic paper--added: “Take her to a music hall, make her dead-drunk--anything for a distraction. The theater for a compromise. I can pass you into the Adelphi. There is a splendid melodrama on there. Something exciting.” I had expected opposition, but, queerly enough, she jumped at the idea. She dressed herself very smartly; I think her face was rouged. She kept laughing as we jolted to the Strand in a cab. In the second act there was a row between two men, and one stabbed the other to the heart. It was most unlucky. Barbara was staring up at the dress circle. She turned to me suddenly, her cheeks and eyes blazing. She got up and slipped on her cloak, pulling the hood well over her head before she was out of doors. When I rose too she made a quick, excited gesture, and whispered: “Don’t follow. Whatever you do, don’t follow.” I let her go out quietly alone. When I happened to look up at the dress circle I saw a vacant seat.